


Come Morning Light

by Lapin



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Selkies, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapin/pseuds/Lapin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fíli would never steal a selkie's pelt, but that's alright. He doesn't need to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Morning Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pangur_pangur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pangur_pangur/gifts).



> And another down! I spent the better part of this weekend dedicated to this, to the point of depriving myself of Candy Crush and Tumblr. (Mostly)

“Why didn't you tell me about your new boyfriend?” 

Fíli doesn't look away from his laptop, trying to figure out why the maths isn't right on his project. He's been looking at the screen too long, and he's starting to get a headache. “What are you talking about?” 

Kíli makes a suspicious sound, and pokes at a spot under Fíli's ear. It shouldn't hurt, but the spot is tender for some reason, and he hisses and moves away while Kíli laughs. “The one who left that.” 

He gets up off the sofa and goes into the bathroom so he can look for himself about what Kíli is on about He'd pulled his hair back this morning, and now that he gets a look at himself, he can see the bruise his hair had been hiding. “Damn it, Ori,” he swears, pulling out the hair tie and combing his fingers through it. One of his nails is jagged, and it gets caught, pulling and stinging.

“So, who's Ori?” Kíli followed him. Of course he did. 

“Go fuck yourself,” Fíli tells him offhandedly, biting at the jagged nail, and going back into the living room so he can grab his mobile. He wants to text Ori, but he's not sure he should. He thinks he's supposed to wait for Ori to say something. “And he's not my boyfriend.” Fíli doesn't think he's his boyfriend, at least. Things weren't exactly made all that clear when they went home for winter break. 

“Then what is he?” 

Fíli thinks about whether or not he should tell Kíli, sitting back down with his laptop while he does. “He's my tutor.”

He knew Kíli would laugh, but he laughs a little too hard, so Fíli throws the remote at him and hits him in the shoulder. “Oh, come on, it's _you_. You never do anything stupid. This is great.” 

There's no arguing with that. Fíli never does stupid things, because he's never been allowed to. Something about being at uni though, being away from the family and on his own, had made making stupid decisions easier. Made selfish decisions easier. 

He'd needed a tutor. He'd requested one through the school, and he hadn't thought much about it. And then he got to the first tutoring session and there Ori had been, hiding a contraband Starbucks cup under the table and talking about nebulae and planetoids as easily as Fíli might tell someone the sky was blue. He tended to talk too fast when he was excited and he practically vibrated some days when he'd had too much coffee or tea, but he could be completely calm too, when he was reading or drawing. 

He would sketch sometimes, when he was working with Fíli, his hands seeming to work independently of his mouth. Fíli would watch, taking note of how narrow Ori's wrists were when he would finally push his sleeves back.

Looking back, it was when the library had to be closed for a few weeks and they'd started having sessions in their student flats that things had gotten harder. Fíli liked talking to him, and Ori never kicked Fíli out of his place either, and then they started meeting other places; seeing bands, sometimes, but Fíli let Ori take him to museums and the observatory too, and Ori had gone to Fíli's matches when Fíli asked. Again, Fíli was noticing things he shouldn't have been, like the way Ori started to get freckles across his face after he'd been in the sun.

 

It had been after practise one afternoon that things finally changed. Fíli had come back to his flat to find Ori sitting on his bed and waiting, and Fíli realized he had forgotten the time. They'd argued about it, about how Ori had other people he was supposed to meet and couldn't just wait around for Fíli all day, and Fíli had snapped back that Ori didn't have to wait. He'd been jealous. Stupid thing to be jealous of. 

Fíli stripped off his shirt, trying to change out of his dirty kit, and then Ori had paused, and when Fíli looked at him, saw how red he was, he knew why. And he wasn't jealous anymore.

“You alright there?” He'd been teasing, enjoying it, realizing he could have this, and Ori had turned even redder, and Fíli had grabbed him by the waist, bent so his mouth was by Ori's ear and it had been so stupid, but he'd asked, “Like what you see?” 

Ori had laughed, and that was when things changed. Not in a bad way, Fíli didn't think. He'd liked the change. He liked Ori. He liked Ori a lot. Sometimes Ori would keep talking about whatever it was he was focused on when he was in Fíli's lap or Fíli was on top of him, and it was just absolutely mental, but Fíli loves it. He never learned as much about literature or history in school as he has with Ori, who can talk about Mary Shelley while very slowly unbuttoning Fíli's shirt, and yeah, he's never fancied a tease until now. 

He's not exactly sure Ori even knows he's a tease. 

He's also not exactly sure why he's the one sitting and waiting for a text. He's never had to before. Not that he really got around much in school, just that when he did, he never really had to worry about whether or not someone actually wanted him.

It's different with Ori. It's all just really different with Ori. 

Fíli's not thick. He's never been thick. He knows that people always think he and Kíli are idiots, and sometimes that's fair, because they've done a lot of stupid things. But he's not. Stupid, that is. He knows he's not exactly who anyone would pick as Ori's ideal match. He likes him though. Ori is easy to be around and Fíli thinks Ori likes being around him for things other than tutoring and whatever else they get up to. They can talk about a lot of things. 

“So,” Kíli says, adjusting himself on the other sofa so his head is on the ground and his legs are against the backrest, a position both their mothers have warned against almost every day Fíli can remember, “you going to go see him during break?” 

“Don't know.” He's not even completely sure where Ori lives, now that he thinks about it. He knows it's by the water. He tries to think, and remembers some Photoshopped picture of purple trees that Ori had been annoyed at. “Skye, I think.” He checks his phone again out of habit, and then his e-mail. Nothing from Ori. “He didn't ask me before we left.” 

He'd hardly said good-bye, for that matter. Fíli had finished his exams and gone to see Ori to see how his had gone. Ori had been almost done packing by the time Fíli got there, rushing around and more of a mess than Fíli had ever seen him. “Sorry, I missed my train, and now everything is a mess -” he'd said, and when he finally left, he hadn't kissed Fíli good-bye or asked him to come visit or anything.

Fíli's not sure what to think of that. 

“Did you ask him?” Trust Kíli to find the flaw in Fíli's self-pity. 

“Have you met our family?” Fíli counters.

It's not as bad as it used to be, but having two mothers still makes a lot of people pause for a second, and that's not even factoring in how their mothers can be. Plus their uncles, and the rest of their family, who never seem to leave their bloody house, especially not during the holidays. Fíli wouldn't subject Ori to that even if Ori had declared undying love and devotion to him. Fíli can hardly subject himself to it, and he grew up in it. And he doesn't want to know how everyone will treat it when they find out just how they met. 

It's not like on campus. He's here at home, and they expect him to be who he's supposed to be. Responsible, reliable. He's not sure how Ori will mesh with that image, or that he wants Ori to see him that way. 

“His can't be nearly as bad as ours,” Kíli admits, his foot thumping against the wall. “No one can be as bad as ours. Remember what happened the first time Uncle Thorin brought Bilbo over?” 

“Unfortunately.” Everyone gets along just fine now, but that first dinner had been awkward. 

“So...why don't you just text him?” 

“Why don't you mind your own business?” 

Kíli uses an arm to turn himself right side up. “Why are you being such an arse about it?”

He shrugs, and checks his mobile again. Still nothing. “I don't know.” He brings up Ori's name on the phone, and tries to find the way to describe Ori, and how just looking at their old texts makes him feel. “I don't know what I'm doing.”

His brother flips himself off the couch, and hits Fíli with a pillow. “You're not doing anything. Which is stupid.” He's not wrong, but that just makes it more irritating. 

That night, after his mothers have gone to bed and Kíli's gone out to see some friends, Fíli finds himself sitting on the boot of his car with a cigarette, the cold not bad enough he's too bothered. He likes sitting out here in the quiet, having time to think for himself. He looks up, and finds a few now-familiar constellations. Looking at them like this makes him think of Ori, the pair of them sharing a cigarette while Ori explained the whole universe to Fíli. 

_Can I come visit you?_

He types it out and looks at it, tries to figure out what he's doing. He doesn't want to botch this up, but at the same time, he's getting tired of not knowing where he stands with Ori. He hits _send_ , and sets the mobile down beside him on the boot, not looking, and trying to ignore the twisting feeling in his stomach. 

He's halfway through his second cigarette when the phone buzzes, loud against the metal. 

_If you want to_.

♦

Fíli's never been to Isle of Skye before. He's seen pictures, heard people talking about holidaying there. It is pretty, but not quite as dramatically so as the pictures. It looks a lot more real in person. He leans on the railing of the ferry, smoking, having been exiled all the way out here by the dirty looks all the other passengers started giving him when he lit up.

The old man with the pipe is still sitting in his seat, at least, ignoring them all, including the middle-aged woman beside him who keeps pointedly fanning at the smoke with her travel brochure. Fíli meets his eyes by accident, and grins when the old man winks at him and blows a few smoke rings. 

He's not entirely sure this was a great idea. His mothers hadn't been happy about it. Fíli hadn't given them enough warning, apparently, and suddenly there were all sorts of plans that would be ruined if Fíli wasn't there. He'd almost given in, had almost done just what they wanted him to do, but he wants to see Ori. 

The ferry docks, with an unpleasant sort of rocking _thump_ , so he drops what's left of his cigarette in the water and waits for the ramp to go down, shouldering his bag. 

Ori is waiting for him, wrapped up in one of his too-big woolly jumpers, this one a soft grey sort of colour, along with his heavy purple scarf and hat. He's bouncing a little, trying to keep warm in the cold, obviously. When he spies Fíli, he waves to him, but stays in the vague shelter he's apparently found against the side of some building. 

“Hey,” he says, but doesn't uncross his arms. He does move a bit closer to Fíli. “Are you cold? There's a place we can eat.” He rocks from foot to foot, biting his lip, and Fíli thinks this was a bad idea. “You didn't stand on the deck the whole time, did you?” 

“They don't let you smoke inside,” Fíli says. “I came outside for just the last bit. Didn't see many seals. Guidebook said there were seals.” 

“It's winter,” Ori says, shrugging. “They stay near the shore. I guess it's warmer.” He hitches his chin towards where everyone else is going. “It's really cold out here. Come on, we'll get something to eat here.” 

He's different here, Fíli thinks, walking beside him. Ori's subdued here, somehow, and he keeps his eyes on the ground as they walk, not talking to any of the locals Fíli sees milling about. Some of them do look at Ori, and he catches one frowning at the pair of them. Fíli looks back at her, and the person, a woman not much older than them, makes a nasty face in return. 

“Everyone is big on fish here,” Ori is saying, ducking inside a dark doorway, Fíli following. “But there's other things too. Just a lot of fish.” He says it like an apology, but Fíli's not sure why. 

They sit at the bar, Fíli setting his bag on the ground beside them. The bartender doesn't give Ori a funny look at least, just gets them both their drinks and takes their orders. The whole place does have the general smell of fried fish, but it doesn't bother Fíli too much. When he was little, his mothers and uncles used to all go down to the shore for their summer holidays. It reminds him of that a little, if only it wasn't so bloody cold. 

He's gotten his food by the time Ori asks, “Why did you want to come visit?” 

“I was supposed to wait until January to see you?” Maybe it was a little desperation back when he asked, but now that he's with Ori again, he remembers all the ways he loves being around him. He had missed him, even if it's only been a week or so. “I'd of invited you, but my family is mad, and I still share a room with my brother when I'm home.” 

Ori smiles, holding his beer with both hands. “Doesn't that get awkward?”

“You have no idea. Kíli always forgets to lock the bloody door.” He looks at Ori, trying to pinpoint what's so different. “What about your family? They don't mind me coming?” 

“They're not here,” Ori says, shrugging and taking a sip of his beer. “My oldest brother is on the Mainland for another week, and my other brother is travelling.”

That leaves off some people. “What about your parents?” 

“They don't live here.” 

“Where do they live then?” He shouldn't push, he realises a moment too late. Ori has hunched in on himself, like the very question hurts him. “Sorry. Forget it.” He finishes his chicken, but the potatoes are a bit burnt, and he's not all that hungry anyway. Ori only got chips, like he always does, but he's still picking at them. Fíli nicks one, just because he can. “Is your house far from here?”

“Not very. We live a little away from everyone else.” 

They take a taxi anyway, because Fíli doesn't feel like walking with his bag. There's plenty of them milling around, obviously waiting for tourists. There are more of them than Fíli thought there would be in the winter. 

Ori lives in exactly the sort of house Fíli would have expected, if he thought about it. It's an old cottage, half exposed stone, half painted a sort of greyish-blue colour he can't quite place, and even though a lot of the garden is dead, he can guess the place is covered in flowers during the warmer months. There's ivy making a bold attempt at covering one corner, and moss growing between the slate-grey paving stones they walk up to the little garden door. 

“Why is the front door facing the other way?” he asks, looking around the kitchen they've walked into. It's old, old enough it has a brick fireplace against the wall, and a farmhouse sink with a curtain hanging below it. Everything else is somewhat up to date, he thinks, but there's bundles of stuff hanging from the rafters, green bunches of what he guesses are herbs, and even little red and orange peppers. 

The fridge looks brand new, shiny and metallic, and it doesn't seem to fit in. 

“I don't know. Someone else built the house. My grandparents bought it when my mother was little. It sticks anyway. You can't get it open this time of year.” He hangs his scarf and hat on the hook built into the wall, and takes his shoes off, Fíli copying him. “I did some shopping yesterday, so there's food.” He bites his lip. “There's um...there's only three bedrooms. And the other two are my brothers', and they'd get upset if I let you stay in one. And we don't have a camp bed or anything. So you'll have to share with me, unless you want to try the sofa.” 

He doesn't seem to know what to do either, and Fíli's gone long enough without touching him. He touches Ori's jaw, turning his face up, and kisses him. For the first time since Fíli got off the ferry, Ori relaxes, easing into the kiss, one of his hands going up into Fíli's hair. Ori's got a soft shirt on under the jumper, but under that it's warm skin, and Fíli spreads his fingers over the small of Ori's back. 

“I missed you,” Ori says, looping his other arm around Fíli's neck. 

“Missed you, too.” 

The staircase is a narrow, wooden one braced against one of the inner walls of the house, and steep. The wood of the railing looks newer than the actual steps, and Fíli wonders how anyone could have managed them without. He's heard people used to be smaller, but he thinks they wore a lot more clothes too. “How old is this house?”

“It's one of the oldest here,” Ori answers, reaching the landing. “Someone important built it, but I forget who. Everyone hates that we have it.” 

“Why's that?” There are five doors in the hall, three of which are firmly shut. Of the other two, one is open to a bathroom that's been renovated very recently, from the peek Fíli gets, and the other one is obviously Ori's room, even before the door is open all the way. “What do they care?” He doesn't get an answer, but he's not sure Ori heard him either, and he forgets soon enough.

Ori's room was painted white at one point, but general wear and tear has left it with scuff marks, pinholes, and what looks like a tea stain. There are lots of sketches and finished work pinned up on the walls, and rows of old sketchbooks on a shelf in the bookcase built into the wall. Ori's got all his supplies spread out on his desk, and here, he has even more than he does at school. 

The bed is shoved in the corner, and, unlike everything else in the room, is neatly made up. There's even a quilt folded at the foot. “I can make up the fire too,” Ori says, and Fíli turns to see there's a small fireplace against the wall. “My grandmother had heating and everything put in, but it doesn't work very well anymore. The fire gets the room warmer.” 

“Did you wash everything for me?” Fíli asks. 

“It seemed polite,” Ori mumbles. “Besides, I fell asleep with my charcoal again. It got everywhere.” The fact Ori's done that multiple times isn't news to Fíli. He's seen Ori's sheets at school, and the various smudges of charcoal, ink, and even paint. “At least I have a proper washing machine here. I hate the ones at school.” 

It's cold in the room, and the bed looks nice and warm. It's been a long trip up here. 

Fíli wraps his arms around Ori's waist, pulling Ori's back up against his chest. “How much have you missed me?” 

“A lot,” Ori says softly. 

The sheets were never going to stay clean, but it's nice to start with. The whole bed smells good, even if it is colder than Fíli expected. The pair of them warm it up quick enough, but they're careful to stay under the blankets at first, until they stop caring. Fíli stops caring, at least. He loves this, feeling so close to Ori, has always liked this part best out of all of it, that for just a little while, the world is just them. 

He takes the side by the wall when they're done, Ori pushing him over so he can climb out of the bed. While Fíli watches, he grabs a pair of boxers off the ground, his own, and a shirt, actually the one Fíli was wearing. “Just a tick,” he says, leaving the room and walking down the steps, it sounds like. 

Fíli settles on the bed, an arm under his head, and watches the dying sunlight fade. It turns Ori's walls grey and shadowed, the pictures pinned on the wall getting harder and harder to make out. Eventually, he forces himself up so he can grab his phone. He had it off most of the trip, to avoid his mothers' calls, and now that he turns it back on. By the time its restarted, Ori is back, with a tray.

“What'd you bring me?” Fíli asks, ignoring his mobile as it starts to buzz. He covers it with a pillow when it won't stop. 

Ori eyes the phone. “I made tea,” he says, giving Fíli a funny look too now. “And Dori made biscuits before he left. He doesn't like store-bought ones.” 

“Why?”

“Because he's Dori.” That's apparently enough explanation. “I'm going to make up the fire. Do you want a shower?” 

Fíli dunks one of the biscuits in the mug of tea he's claimed for himself. It's good enough, he decides, even if he's not big on chocolate and mint mixed together. “Really don't want to get out of this bed now. Want you back in this bed too.” 

“You're a very demanding guest,” Ori says, but once he's finished with the fire, he gets back in, sitting cross-legged beside Fíli and pulling the quilt up over his legs. “Any more requests?” 

“Kiss me,” Fíli says, and gets what he asked for. Ori tastes like warm tea now. “Are you really all by yourself out here?” 

Ori nods. “Dori owns a wine shop. He has to go to vineyards a lot. When I was little, he would take me with him, but it's really boring. Nori works for a family friend, and he has to travel all the time now. So a lot of the time, when I'm not at school, it's just me.” He takes a sip of his tea, as Fíli's phone makes a half-hearted attempt to be heard under the pillow prison. “I was actually really happy you wanted to visit. It's not bad during the summer hols, but it gets lonely during the winter. Especially when there's not a lot of tourists to keep everyone busy.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Nothing, not really. Want to watch a film?” 

He sets up his laptop on the bed, and they watch the old Batman movie, Fíli falling asleep before it's even halfway through. He wakes up a few times, in the vaguest sense of the term, when Ori sets the laptop aside, or one of the times he gets up to do whatever with the fire. The sound of it is a nice background noise, combined with the water and Ori's breathing. 

The sun wakes him up. Ori's window faces the sunrise, and the light hits Fíli's face. He gets up and manuevers his way out of the bed without waking Ori. He needs a shower for sure. 

The bathroom isn't any different from any other, but Fíli keeps the shower short in case there's a hot water limit. Ori is still asleep by the time Fíli gets out, so he leaves him where he is, deciding to explore the house. He stays out of the other rooms on the second floor, determining they must be Ori's brothers' bedrooms, and probably the linen closet. He didn't see much of the downstairs yesterday though, and he's curious. 

First though, breakfast. Ori had said he'd done the shopping, so there must be food in the kitchen. He finds the kettle, and gets the water started, then puts some bread in the toaster. He finds a jar of blueberry jam too, and he's having himself a decent breakfast when someone knocks at the kitchen door. 

There's a man holding a crate full of glass bottles of milk, and one of cream. “Brought the butter too,” he says. “So you're Ori's visitor.” 

“Yeah.” He's never actually seen someone deliver milk. He guesses it's a local farm, or something. Either way, he takes the big glass jug of milk, the smaller one of cream, and the wrapped butter. “Do I pay you, or...?” 

“Nah. It's a monthly thing.” He doesn't start walking back to the little lorry parked in front of the house. “So how do you know the Rieszs?” 

Maybe he knows Ori. “I go to school with Ori.” 

“Do you now? That school far away?” 

He doesn't know Ori, then. He's just being nosy. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks for the milk.” 

“You wouldn't know about his family then, would you?” It's the way he says it that gets Fíli's tense. Like it's a secret. A secret Ori was avoiding last night. “About his mother?” 

“Thanks for the milk,” Fíli says more firmly, and shuts the door. 

He hears the creak on the step as he puts the glass bottles in the fridge, and when he looks around the corner, there's Ori, sitting on the steps, his arms around his knees. He's still wearing Fíli's shirt from yesterday, and he's never worn anything of Fíli's before. He's never had anyone borrow his clothes. It makes him happy, in a stupid, inexplicable sort of way. “You can keep the shirt,” he says, thinking of seeing Ori wearing it around campus. “Do you want tea?”

Ori nods, standing up and not saying anything else, not until he sits at the table and has tea and toast in front of him. “Do you want to ask?” 

“Yeah, but I think you don't want to tell me, so that's alright.” 

“I shouldn't have let you come out here,” Ori says, and Fíli's heart sinks. 

“Do you...” He already made his return plans, but it won't be that hard to change them. “Do you want me to leave?” 

“No.” He takes a sip of his tea. “Your phone was going off again. It says you have a lot of missed calls.”

“I told them I was alive. You'd think that's be good enough, but no.” He's told Ori about his family before, enough he knows who Fíli is talking about. “I think they just want to meet you. Kíli's already broke and told them about you. He texted me on the train.” He'd lasted longer than Fíli thought he would. “Maybe over the next break. If you want to.” 

Ori is looking at him over his tea. “You want me to visit you?” 

“Yeah, I do.” He swirls his own tea. “You might not want to though. My family is always around. And there's a lot of them.” 

“I thought you just had one brother?” 

Fíli nods. “Yeah, but I have a lot of cousins.” Outside, it's sunny. “Can we go for a walk today? I want to see where you used to look for faeries.” 

“Shut it,” Ori groans, but he gets dressed and they pack up a lunch to take with them. 

It's cold out, and there's a dusting of snow still in some places, but it's pleasant enough, not like the ferry. Fíli's boots crunch on the frozen grass in places, a nice sound. The sky is winter-blue, faded out with just a few clouds streaking across the sky, and eventually, Fíli manages to catch Ori's hand, locking their fingers together and pulling Ori close enough their shoulders and elbows bump against one another a few times. He looks over at Ori's face, pink from cold even with his scarf and hat, and wants to kiss him. 

They've come down to the shore now though, and Ori lets go of Fíli, placing the bag with their lunch in it on top of a big rock. 

“I used to come down here all the time,” Ori says. “I really wanted it to be magic.” The water is loud, crashing against the sand and rocks in a steady rhythm, and Fíli finds something soothing about it, like listening to a heartbeat. 

“I can see that.” There's a calm isolation about the place, and Ori seems to fit here better than he did on the docks. 

“I hate being in town,” Ori continues, toeing a crooked line in the sand. “Everyone always looks at us funny. I liked being down here instead.” He smooths over the line, and keeps looking out towards the water. “When I was really little, my mother used to tell us she was really a selkie, and so were we. My brother, Nori? He used to say it after she was gone, until Dori made him stop.” 

Out in the water, Fíli hears a strange noise, and when he looks, he spots a fat, slick seal boosting itself awkwardly up onto a wet rock. It doesn't seem to care about either of them, but Fíli can't really see where its dark eyes are looking from this distance. 

“Where'd your mother go?” 

Another seal bobs to the surface, and looking around until it spots the other one, where it boosts itself up beside its companion. 

Ori is quiet for so long, and that, combined with the somewhat eerie feeling of the place, has Fíli wondering if Ori is going to suddenly pull a pelt from the rocks and join the seals in the water. He doesn't know what he would do with that, or why he even thinks it's credible for a moment. It's just the place, this odd little island, and the way Ori is.

“Prison,” Ori says, walking closer to the water. Fíli has to strain to hear him. “Then she got out when I was fourteen. We were already sort of outsiders here. Not a lot of Rieszs.” He looks over his shoulder at Fíli, like it's a joke. It is, sort of, one Fíli knows pretty well himself, but he doesn't think it's a very funny one in this somewhat isolated place. Even with two mothers, he doesn't live in a place like this, where no one has anything else to whisper about. “Everyone remembers what she did though. And then Nori went to prison too. He was only in for three years, but everyone thinks he's going to be just like her. I guess they're waiting to see how I turn out.” 

Fíli hesitates before he touches Ori, waiting to see if it's alright. Ori turns to him, just a little, just enough Fíli feels okay about resting his hand on the small of Ori's back, touching his face. He drags his fingers down behind Ori's ear, pushing the edge of his hat back a bit. “Hey,” he says, trying to find something good to say. He can't think of anything though. He can't think of anything that really describes Ori adequately. “Glad you're not a selkie. Those stories always end badly.” 

“Would you hide my pelt?”

“I'd probably just ask you to stay.” 

It makes Ori laugh, and Fíli thinks maybe he lied, because he can't really promise he wouldn't have considered it. But those stories really do always end badly.

“Come on,” Ori says, and pulls Fíli along, keeping them well above the water line, but the spray still gets them when Ori gets him to come up on some of the big rocks.

The rocks are wet, and not as easy to climb as Fíli thought they would be. But once they're up where Ori obviously wants to be, he sees why. They have a much better view of the water, and now he sees the dark heads in the water, the hint of a flipper coming above the water. “They don't have a cave here. It's a little further up. But sometimes they come down here. Sometimes, they even came ashore.”

“Did you ever try and join them?” 

“No. You're not really supposed to go near them. Sometimes they get aggressive.” Fíli thinks he read that in the guidebook sometime during the ferry ride. 

They climb back down when the spray gets higher, Ori telling him it can get dangerous if they wait much longer. The water is higher on the beach now, and Ori bends to pick up a dark stone, turning it over in his hands. They eat before heading back, and this time, it's Ori who grabs Fíli's hand. 

The house is as empty as it was when they left, and Ori starts a fire in the living room while Fíli makes tea. He's never lived like this before, so isolated. There aren't any neighbours really, and it's just him and Ori out here. No one asking him what he's doing, what his plans are, and on and on. 

It's lonely, but not in a bad way. 

Ori puts on some music, and tries to take his tea from Fíli. But Fíli likes the song, and he slips an arm around Ori's waist instead, pulling him close. “I like it here,” he says. “Even if you are a selkie.” 

“I'm glad you're here,” Ori replies. “I thought I was going to be by myself until school started again.” 

Fíli kisses the side of his head, loving the way he feels against Fíli. “You should come back with me, when it's time for me to go. Come see my house.” Ori's quiet, so Fíli adds, “You don't have to, if you don't want to.” 

“I want to,” Ori says.

♦

It's overcast the day they leave. Fíli had told his mothers he was bringing someone back with him, and that had set off another flurry of calls and texts, but he'd only answered one call from each, and kept things as basic as possible. If they want to be nosy, they'll do it in the open.

“Look,” Ori says, getting Fíli's attention. 

It's one of those unnaturally warm winter days, meaning it's a lot more bearable, even if the air has the heavy feeling of a storm coming. They won't be here, so it doesn't matter much, Fíli thinks. 

Out in the water, Fíli sees the pod of seals swimming, a bit away from the ferry. Around them, everyone is taking pictures, not paying them any attention, so Fíli wraps his arms around Ori, sharing body heat. “They telling you good-bye?” 

“No,” Ori says. “They just like the ferry. Sometimes people give them food, even though you're not supposed to.”

“Don't believe you,” Fíli teases. “They're making sure you're alright. That I'm not stealing you away.”

“You wouldn't have to steal me,” Ori says, very quietly, almost a whisper, “even if that was true, you wouldn't,” and he has very dark eyes. 

Them and the words makes Fíli's stomach clench, and he tightens his arms, burying his face in the crook of Ori's neck. “Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guess what?
> 
> I take [commissions](http://themarchrabbit.tumblr.com/commissions) now, for rock-bottom prices! Why? Because I still haven't found a new job yet, and this is all I've got.
> 
> And a reminder that if you donated to my Patreon, please contact me with your request via my Tumblr or here.


End file.
